Etiquette for Accepting a Drink at a Bar and Avoiding Getting Toasted

When someone you don’t know offers to buy you a drink at a bar, are you obligated to talk if you accept? In my own informal poll, women almost universally say it’s rude to take the drink, walk away, and not make conversation. But men say that buying a drink is simply a gamble, and it’s disappointing but not reproachable if the woman accepts and takes off. Who’s right? (P.S. I’m a woman.)

V.W. /// Cambridge

Maybe the men in your informal poll answered as they did for the same reason they’ll buy a woman a drink – so that she, or in this case, you, will think they’re charming. They wouldn’t have sounded very attractive if they’d said, “Heck, yes, if I lay out my hard-earned cash on a beer for a babe, she doggone well better talk to me!” even if that was how they really felt about it. Now you see the difficulty of conducting accurate public-opinion research and why you should always, therefore, treat survey results with a dose of skepticism. But, of course, you didn’t ask me about that.

I think both the men and women in your poll are right. It is rude and tacky and cheap to accept a gift from someone you don’t wish to know. For a woman to do so is, paradoxically, both haughty (“I accept your tribute, peasant; now begone”) and self-diminishing (“I’m just a helpless sex object who can’t pay for her own drinks”). But the men are also right, even if they were just saying what they did to make themselves look good. You’re not obligated to anyone for something freely given. The Sierra Club can send me all the return-address labels it wants to; that doesn’t mean I have to donate.

But it sounds as though there ought to be some kind of general rule here, so I’ll propose the following: I think if you accept an offer of a drink from someone – and this goes for men and women, gay or straight, and anyone I’ve left out – you should be willing to start a conversation with that person.

Your benefactor has bought at least an introduction. If the conversation is polite but doesn’t spark anything, you can leave when the drink is done. If the person behaves boorishly, the best way to make your point is to say “Thank you for the drink,” and leave both lout and lager at the bar. (You will look like a pathetic drunk if you take the drink with you.) And I hope I don’t have to explain the next step if the conversation is both polite and does spark something.

My boyfriend of one year is kind, sweet, attentive, and thoughtful. He’s also quite handsome; however, in the year I’ve known him he’s probably had three haircuts. When he does go to the barber, he looks so terrific I don’t understand why he lets months go by until the next one. He does lead a busy life. I have gently suggested, to no avail, that he go more often, letting him know how good he looks when his hair is trimmed. His job requires him to be in the public eye, so I would think he would care more about his appearance. How can I encourage him to visit the barber more often?

K.S. /// Sandwich

“Drop it!” This is advice I often give my new dog, Milo, when I am walking him. “Drop it, boy!” I say, and then he does not drop it, and I have to crouch down and shove my hand in his mouth and remove whatever bizarre item – an acorn, a bottle top, an ATM receipt – he has decided would make a good snack. But he is a good dog generally, smart and affectionate and funny, and the pleasure of his company far outweighs the occasional drool-covered hand.

It sounds as though your boyfriend has at least as many good qualities as my dog does, so I would tell you what I so often tell Milo: Drop it. It’s his appearance and his job. This is not worth arguing about. We must all endure the idiosyncrasies and imperfections of those we love.

When a toast is given, is the person being toasted supposed to drink? I always thought that you do not drink to yourself. But wherever I go, when a toast is made, the recipient drinks (sometimes somewhat hesitantly). What is the right response, if one is not supposed to drink? A nod or saying “Thank you”?

N.P. /// New Bedford

You are right – toastees do not drink. (And a good thing, too, at weddings or retirement dinners, when to do so could get the honored person so toasted that the next day he or she would be unable to remember all those nice things people said about him or her.) They should smile, look down, glance around sheepishly, roll their eyes amusingly if the person making the toast waxes too rhapsodic, and, if they have yogilike control over their

autonomic nervous system, blush at the proper moment. After the toast is completed, honorees should say “Thank you,” heartily and sincerely. They may also, then, lead a toast to the guests for coming. This kind of reciprocal toasting, however, can, if unchecked, lead to flinging glasses into fireplaces, dancing impromptu horas, and yelling “Opa!” So if, for some reason, that is not your idea of a good time, a simple “Thank you” will suffice.

Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a Cambridge-based writer with a PhD in psychology.